It is well known in material handling to palletize products into standard dimensional configurations for the purpose of efficient handling, transporting, stacking and subsequent storage, perhaps in a warehouse location. However, the handling of items during the manufacturing process and pre-shipping often requires piecemeal management, whereby transfer of the articles of manufacture are performed one or more at a time without the advantage of protective packing materials and/or pallets. Accordingly, great care and special considerations must be exercised so as not to cause damage to work in progress, or the finished goods, by the handling equipment.
Industrial lift trucks, or forklifts as they are more commonly known, are routinely used in the manufacturing and service industries to lift and transport materials from one location to another through the use of a pair of forwardly extending spaced apart steel forks that are intended to raise and support such objects during a transfer operation. Often times the materials to be transported have specific form factors that are more difficult to handle than others because they lack a lifting surface area that is co-planar with the lifting forks. For example, an upright 55 gallon drum is stable and easily engaged under the bottom of one flat end, however when placed on its side, the cylindrical shape of such a drum has a tendency to roll about due to gravity and inertia, as it is moved around. Hence, securing cylindrical objects having a high aspect ratio remains to be an ongoing problem for forklifts requiring further methods or tools to mitigate damage to goods caused by rolling, collisions, and scaring, as well as promoting safety. Accordingly there has been a long felt need for safely handling heavy, cumbersome loads that are generally cylindrical in shape, in order to mitigate damage to the object including, deformation, gouging and or fracturing at the point of contact with the fork, as well as dropping or collision with other objects as the load rolls about on the forks.
One aspect of the disclosed embodiments provides an enhanced contact surface between the lifting forks and a cylindrical object. Accordingly, it is an object of the disclosed embodiments to provide a cradle that is compliant with the outer surface of the cylindrical load to retain the object on the forks.
It is another object of the disclosed embodiments to ensure that the outer surface finish of the object being transported is unaffected by engagement with the forks.
It is yet another object of the disclosed embodiments to minimize relative motion between the object being lifted or moved and the forks of the lift, and the disclosed embodiments include both a curvilinear/inclined surface as the interface between the forks and the object, as well as hold down mechanisms to which additional straps or other hold-down mechanisms can be attached in order to minimize motion. It is a further objective of the disclosed embodiments to provide a magnetic attachment capability for easy use and storage of the disclosed retainers.
Disclosed in embodiments herein is a materials handling system for supporting a cylindrical object, comprising: an elongated backplane; a wedge on the distal end of said backplane; a wedge on the proximal end of said backplane; and a compliant surface spanning the backplane and both distal and proximal wedges, said surface at least partially displaced by the object to retain the position of the object.
Further disclosed in embodiments herein is a materials handling system suitable for supporting a cylindrical object on flat forks of a forklift, comprising: a pair of saddles, wherein each saddle includes a shallow V-shaped notch; and a compliant surface, said surface at least partially displaced by the object to retain the position of the object; and a pair of channels, each of said pair of channels having a hollow region therethrough such that said hollow region is of a size suitable to receive a fork of the forklift therein, each of said channels having one of said saddles operatively attached thereto.
Also disclosed herein is a method of manufacturing a saddle for supporting a cylindrical object, comprising: forming an elongated backplane of a material having a first density, forming a wedge on the distal end of said backplane, wherein at least a portion of said wedge includes a material of a second density, different than the first density; and forming a wedge on the proximal end of said backplane, wherein at least a portion of said wedge includes a material of a second density, different than the first density.
Other and further objects, features and advantages will be evident from a reading of the following description and by reference to the accompanying drawings forming a part thereof.
The various embodiments described herein are not intended to limit the invention to those embodiments described. On the contrary, the intent is to cover all alternatives, modifications, and equivalents as may be included within the spirit and scope of the various embodiments and equivalents set forth. For a general understanding, reference is made to the drawings. In the drawings, like references have been used throughout to designate identical or similar elements. It is also noted that the drawings may not have been drawn to scale and that certain regions may have been purposely drawn disproportionately so that the features and aspects could be properly depicted.